Capitalist apologists will tell you that there is no way around or out of this dynamic, because each and every business owner is individually compelled by the invisible hand to do this to generate profit for shareholders, and any possible alternative where people engage in a labor of love is fundamentally inferior to the labor-constraining model and will always inevitably be outcompeted by it.
Within capitalism, they are absolutely right, except a labor of love will always be better, but will just simply be appropriated for profit.
Capitalist apologists believe the dogma that capitalism has maximal, unrivaled efficiency and intelligence in resource usage, and I will mock them forever for this based on simple empirical observation.
Adding “until a complete revolution overthrows capitalism” does not really separate someone from the TINA doctrine.
The economy is largely built on smoke and mirrors, and structured around shortsightedness and jealousy and excuses. There are tremendous amounts of waste and slack in the system. You notice this all over when you look around, if you are not blinded by the conclusions of the ruling class’s ideology, whether in their standard form or inverted form.
Yes, capitalism is not efficient, but it is exploitative. If you love not just your product, but also your co-workers and yourself, you can’t compete with exploitative competition. Self employment is often just self exploitation and not sustainable. Some counterexample can occur, but they won’t dominate the market. “Ethical consumption” is the relevant ruling class ideology that we should avoid here. It can do some good but won’t be enough to change the underlying system. Organizing labor is necessary in every branch of production. Games are no magical exception to this basic marxist law.
Is capitalism exhaustively optimized, or not? Are firms under capitalism always subjected to maximal competition pressure, or not? Is there slack in the system, or is it all pulled taut so everyone’s hand is deterministically tied? You can’t have it both ways.
A simple educated assessment of most businesses’ economic situation will give you the answer, and anything that asserts that you disbelieve your eyes (or that has you agreeing with Austrian economists!) should be treated with skepticism.
Comrade, I think we both understand capitalism quite well, but it seems we may have been completely talking past each other. It’s a minor issue and not important either way, so I won’t bother to clear up the misunderstand, but next time, we should aim for more clarity.
Producing a commodity for free is the wet dream of a capitalist. If anything, the actions of these large studios are a simulacra of that indie spirit. While the labour of love will benefit from not being bound by the same regulations and infrastructure necessary to make workers survile, both produce a commodity that seeks to optimise the ratio of exchange value to labour costs.
Of course, one has to eat under any economic system, but the beauty of capitalism is how that guides expressions of art, media, culture, etc. into the necessity of extracting someone’s surplus labour in the process - I certainly don’t mean to lambast the guy who wrote Stardew Valley as a capitalist leech for that act. Even Markus Persson (“Notch”) cannot be criticised on a moral level for simply writing and selling licenses to Minecraft, although he is a much more poignant example of how capital is morally-corrosive.
There are also games out there which subsist through communal development without promise of economic reward. Beyond All Reason is one I particularly enjoy, which is a fully open source (GPLv3-licensed) RTS inspired by the Total Annihilation series. Luanti (fmr. Minetest) is another example. These all exist a bit closer to a utope, even if bound by capitalism as we all are.
